Friday, November 05, 2004

Don't touch my monkey!

I had so much fun on todayI almost keeled over. I have to say when I woke up today I thought something was seriously wrong, I just wasn't nervous. I had all week to be scared and think of all the things that could terribly wrong. But this morning I was done with all that silliness and I was ready to do my jokes. The Holy Spirit and friends were with me all day and they do good work.

We got to NBC studios around 11:30am and couldn't find where we were suppose to park on the street so we just went in the "artist entrance". When we checked in at security they asked if what I was going to be doing on the show and I said, "belly dancing". Apparently they bought it because they let me in. Everyone on the show was great. One of the producers took me up to my dressing room and showed me around. After I changed into my fancy comedian clothes I went down to see the studio and see where my marks would be. I then went into make up and was made to look all pretty. Without all the lights I looked like a streetwalker, but when I got under all those studio lights everything looked all right. I went back into the studio and ran through my set and the crew was laughing and that made me feel good. I also really enjoyed when the man put the mic on me; he had cold hands. I went back in for my hair to get done and decided I could really get use to this pampering stuff.

They came and took my mom to the studio so she could sit down with the rest of the audience. I was left alone so I headed on down to the green room. I meet a talent coordinator and she was very nice and from San Diego to boot. We talked and discussed a brain dead Arafat (I told her I was no doctor but that just didn't sound healthy at all. She asked if Dave the producer had all my contact information (my dad tell me that's a good sign). We were flipping the channels that are all NBC feeds when we came to channel 39, which is the direct feed from the studio. Dennis Miller was in his chair and was ready to get started, whoops. Producers scurried and yelled and I ran in the studio trying to keep up with the one stage manager who was going to hide my in the corner till it was my turn to do my set. We walked right in front of DM and I felt his stare, I finally gave him my best smile and a wave and he said, "I think she's trying to pick me up". When I got back in my little cubby the makeup ladies found me and ambushed me to fix all the damage I had done to my face by itching and rubbing my nose. After that I just waited in the dark and tried not to look like I was about to explode. I kept waiting to get nervous but it never hit me. All of a sudden I looked up at the screen and there I was saying, "My whole set tonight is about tampons." Damn you Mr. Editor. Bill Dwyer, the comedian who interviewed us asked me to tell him my best tampon joke. I told him I didn't have any and he should tell me his and he did. So this was a couple questions later when I said, "my hold set tonight is about tampons.”" Hardy har har. I got in trouble by my Irish grandma lady Joanie Maloney. She said, "don't be saying tampons on television again."
When it was time for Bill to introduce me Dennis stopped him and told me to take my time and not to worry about doing just a minute. How cool! I had timed all my jokes all week to do a minute exactly. So I just slowed everything way down and did a minute forty seconds. When I went out there it wasn't scary at all. The audience was great and not drunk for once! When I was done DM congratulated me and told me I had done a great set and we shook hands and it was over! I went back to the green room and all the staff said DM really liked my set and I thought this was just as good as it get...boy was I wrong. About 2 minutes later the producer called me out of the room and I thought they had found all the Evian I had stolen from my dressing room. "Did you want to meet the chimp?” Oh hell ya! I followed him back in the studio and went behind the audience bleachers where I saw 3 chairs: 2 ladies and a chimp. The trainer said, "when I say ok put out your hand. He will take it and want to hug you. He might hug you hard because he really likes the ladies so don't be scared." It kind of reminded me of the speeches the nurses at the old folks home use to give about the scary old men who did the same thing. So I went up and met the chimp. He told my hand and pulled me in and grabbed the back of my neck. He pulled my face close to his and stared at me. Then he flipped upside down and put my hands under his head and played with my hair. After grooming me for a bit and not finding and bugs thank God, he started playing with my hair and really made it look great. I decided if I am ever rich and famous I definitely want a chimp around. If not a chimp I will hire a hairy midget to hang out with me but not to play with my hair because that would just be weird.
Overall it was an awesome day and I can't wait to do it again. Where do I go from here? I have no idea. Hopefully someone saw the show and liked me and will marry me and whisk me off to his tropical island where I can sit around and eat pasta all day. Or maybe I will finally get an agent out of this.
Either way...I got to hang out with a monkey!